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TRP: Goro and Ripley (Diva Confession)
Setting Goro stands quietly in Ripley's office, standing just behind the door. It's late, maybe ten PM or so, and she hasn't been to the Guild all day. Ripley finally steps in, opening the door, not seeing Goro yet. Player 1: Goro waits until Ripley approaches her desk. Then he kicks the door, slamming it shut. Player 2: Ripley jumps. The room is pitch black. She immediately turns on one heel, swings blindly in the intruder's direction, and connects. She feels something crunch under her fist. The person staggers, a little dazed, and Ripley grabs them by the shirt, slams them against the wall, and puts a knife at their throat. Player 1: "Gah, for fuck's sake, Joan." Goro coughs, and gags a little. "Ah, fuck, did you break my fucking nose? Will you let go of me?" Player 2: Joan freezes for a second. Then lets go and backs away. She puts her hand on her chest. "For fuck's sake, Goro. Can you just knock like a normal person?" It's still dark. She fumbles with something in her desk, then takes out a small, shining magic stone from a pouch hidden on a drawer. She sets it down, and it dimly lights the room. A lightstone for doing paperwork late at night. She isn't looking at him. There is a pinched look on her face. Player 1: Goro spits blood on the floor. He pulls out a wand, mutters under his breath, and touches the end of it to his rapidly swelling nose. Once healed, he plugs one nostril with his thumb and blows out a blood clot, also aiming it for the floor. "A little on edge, are we? You get a lot of assassins hiding in here?" Player 2: "Yes," Ripley says. Player 1: Goro crosses his arms and leans against the wall. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. Player 2: Ripley shoots him a look. She opens her mouth several times, then cuts herself off each time. "Okay, look," she says. "Amari told me to say-- god damn it." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Oh my god, I am so bad at this. Amari gave me this whole speech about how I ought to tell you I love you and we miss you back home, but I'm not doing it. I refuse. Goro, either come home or I am fucking dragging you there." Player 1: Goro swallows and works his jaw around. He doesn't say anything. His expression is grim, and maybe a little scared... nah, just a trick of the lighting. Player 2: "I want you to know you brought this on yourself," Joan says. And she grabs Goro by the scruff of his neck and drags him towards the door. "We're going to your apartment and getting your stuff--" Player 1: Goro fights her like a spooked cat, spitting and hissing and clawing. "Get the fuck off me! God fucking damn it, I need your help!" Player 2: She lets go. Backs up. And then it tears out of her: "What the fuck did I do to you? Why do you pretend to like everyone but me?" And then she cuts off and shuts her mouth. She forces herself to stay still, though. Can't take it back now that she's said it. Player 1: Goro backs up too, as far away as he can get. He's breathing heavy. He squints at her. "Huh?" He shakes his head, like he's trying to clear it. "Why would I pretend to like you? I'm not trying to get anything from you!" Player 2: Joan kicks her desk. It puts a solid dent in the wood. She shuts her eyes and pinches her nose, repeating the Prayer of Iomedae in her head until the urge to strangle her stepson goes away. She thinks about it. Okay. That makes sense. Goro is typically nice to people when he wants something from them. Fine. "Okay," she says. "Message received. Get out. I'm done with this. I'm not Amari." Player 1: "No." He grinds his teeth together. "I need to tell you something." Player 2: "Then say it and then get out." Player 1: But Goro can't seem to say anything. He shuffles his feet. Rubs his face. Sighs a few times. "Fuck. Ah, fuck. Fuck." He slides down to the floor and hugs his knees to his chest, head bowed. "You're gonna fucking kill me." Player 2: "Goro! For god's sake! I'm not going to kill you! First of all," Ripley says, "First of all--" The prayer wasn't working today. "First of all, Amari would kill me, which would be horrifying for everyone involved, because the woman is a saint and a pacifist. Secondly--" She bites her tongue. God fucking damn it. "Secondly," she says. "I am going to say something, and if you ever repeat it, I will hunt you down and skin you alive. Goro, I love you. I am not ever going to hurt you. And you are going to be fine. Now tell me what it is before I kill you with my bare hands." Player 1: Goro shakes his head again and again, face firmly hidden in his arms. "Nope. Fuck. Nope." Finally he sits up straight and runs his hands through his hair. "Probably best if you get it over with now. Hey, Ripley. I woke up the other morning, and suddenly I could do this." He points his finger straight up. A beam of blue lightning arcs out of it and strikes the ceiling. "You wanna know where that came from?" He glances up at the black, smoking crater he made overhead. "Uh, I'll pay to have that fixed." Player 2: Her face goes very pale, and she stares at him. "Explain," she says. And sits down. Player 1: "You ever hear of a shopkeeper named Diva?" Player 2: "No," Ripley said. Player 1: "No?" Goro laughs, unhappily. "Boy, she's sure as hell heard of you. Diva the Deals Queen. She's a... uh... shit, how do I put this. Well, she's not human, I can tell you that much. She sells magical items, and things. In exchange for, I guess, favors." Player 2: Joan squints. "Favors? Like missions? Running messages, fixing problems?" Player 1: "Uh... no. Like, the souls of children." Player 2: "That's not a funny joke, Goro." Player 1: "It's not a joke." Player 2: Slowly, Joan's expression changes as she catches on. She leans back in her chair, face ashy. "Goro," she says. "What did you do?" Player 1: He sighs. "I was so careful." He fiddles with the ring on his finger, staring into the corner. "I thought of everything. Everything that's important to me. Amari. The Guild. You." He looks her in the eye. "But I fucked it up." Player 2: "So you agreed to something," she says. "Just don't do it." Player 1: "Too late." He starts laughing again. It turns a little hysterical, practically a sob. "I wanted this ring. This stupid fucking ring. She wanted a minute of my life. Aha, you think I'm an idiot? I put some conditions on it. You can't make me hurt myself, I said. You can't make me hurt anyone who works for the Guild. I even went and made you hire Amari, so she'd be safe. I thought of everything." Player 2: "That's what that was about?" Ripley says. Huh. Honestly, as this point, she'd given up trying to figure out whatever Goro was currently doing. Player 1: He nods. "Then, she changed it a little. Everyone who works for Joan Ripley, she said. And boy, turns out, I am an idiot. I couldn't figure out why she was dickering over the wording. So I shrugged it off. And, well." He holds up his hand, showing off the ring, and smiles grimly. Player 2: Joan raises her eyebrows. "So? Why--" And then she closes her mouth again. There is dead silence in the room as Joan goes over the words in her head. "Oh," she says. "Oh...fuck. Wait, hang on. That's exactly how she worded--? Goro--" Player 1: He drops his head again and shakes it a few times. "So listen. That's why I was avoiding you, for a while. But eventually I realized, nah, she's not going to make me attack you now. She knows you'd smoke me. She's got to wait until I'm stronger, right? So that's why I'm telling you now. I think it's best for you to get it over with." Player 2: And Joan's expression fucking drops. She just stares at him a moment. Then she fumbles with her sword-belt. She unbuckles it. She motions at Goro. "Are you armed?" Player 1: "Just these." He lifts his two wands. "They can cast Cure Wounds, but that's about it. Well, and... yeah, that's it." He tosses them to the center of the room, anyway. "Oh, and--" He reaches up his pant leg, pulls out a knife, and tosses it out, too. Player 2: She tosses them in a pile and kicks them over to the corner. Not far away enough-- hypothetically, either of them could still grab them-- but it'd have to do for now. "What's the ring do?" Player 1: For this, he looks genuinely pleased for a moment. "It's a Ring of Mind-Shielding. Does exactly what it sounds like. Protects me from any magic that could read my thoughts or know if I'm lying."(bearbeitet) Player 2: Joan runs over the possibilities in her head. She sinks down into her chair. Trying to see it from every angle, and knowing she can't. What is a shopkeeper going to do with sixty seconds of her time? Why would this woman want her dead? How could they possibly kill her? Slowly, Joan says, "Goro..." What she wants to say is: I'm not going to hurt you. We're going to be fine. "We can't tell Amari," she says numbly. "You can't come home." Player 1: "Yeah, didn't I fucking try and tell you that?" He covers his face with his hands. "Well, have at it. I'd make it quick, if I were you, before she gets a shot in." Player 2: For a second, she's just kind of frozen there. All the effort, and this kid still thought she was going to execute him, she thought numbly. Was this one of his weird little games? This felt-- different than that. More elaborate. He thought she was going to kill him, and he walked into her office to get his throat cut. Her throat closes up for a second, and she almost can't speak. She pauses for a long time. She tries to speak. "Well, that's-- flattering." Fuck this, she thinks. And she walks around the other side of the desk. And she hugs him. Player 1: Goro tenses up, and he's frozen for a moment. "Uh," he says finally. "What are you... doing...." Player 2: She lets go. "Absolutely nothing. Didn't happen." Player 1: "Saying goodbye?" he guesses. But it's pretty clear by now Ripley is not about to kill him. And that's frustrating. Unexpected. "You know what, if you'd rather do it when you can catch me off-guard, I get that." And he moves for the door. Player 2: "Hang on, hang on, hang on." God damn it, she's on a roll with this 'feelings' bullshit, and if she stops now, she's never gonna get back into it later. "How come you think I'm gonna kill you?" Player 1: He stops, hand on the doorknob, and rolls his eyes. He swings back to face her. "Oh, no. I thought you got it before, but I guess not. Do we need to go over it again, Ripley? Slower, this time, so it really sinks in? If you don't kill me now, I'm gonna kill you someday when the fucking eldritch abomination takes over my body. Your move, lady. I'm trying to offer you a choice." Player 2: "No," she says. There's a longer explanation of why not. It's tangled up inside her chest, though, and she has no chance of untangling it right now. She was not going to kill Goro. That was not on the list of possibilities. She swallows. Instead, she says, "It'll be a long time before you can scratch me, Goro. Don't worry about it." She'd already said she wasn't gonna hurt him, and he didn't seem to believe it. Maybe that wasn't the right route to go. "Don't be stupid," she says. "What am I supposed to do? Cut your throat, drag you to a back alley, bury the body, and tell your mother you just up and disappeared?" There. She was being persuasive. "Look," she said. "Let's make it a deal. We've got.... kind've a time limit here, right? Eventually I'm... going to get older, and you.... won't. Eventually you are going to be stronger than me. If we can't fix this by then, then okay, I will kill you. Once it's actually a problem. Fair?" And she holds out her hand. Player 1: He stares at her hand, then at her. "Considering the sort of guy I am, she'd believe it. If you wanted to do it now." Player 2: This was usually the part where Joan threatened to strangle Goro. "No," Joan says. Period. She continues holding out her hand. "Look. I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Let's take this bitch down. Then Frederick. Work with me." Player 1: Goro takes her hand. Pumps it a few times. A few too many times, really. "Ah, fuck, Joan, I..." He moves in like he means to hug her, then stops. Pulls back. Then dives in, and hugs her. Player 2: Ripley froze. No idea what to do. Then, uncomfortably, her hands settled on Goro's back. She clutched him tight for a second, overwhelmed. Well. Apparently he liked her and he was going to shank her in her sleep. That was... better than just the shanking part, probably. God, Amari absolutely could not ever find out about this. She wasn't going to kill him even if it came to that. She blocked off that part of the problem in her head. It wouldn't come to that. She started mentally preparing contingency plans. Maybe-- if she could make herself look vulnerable, get Diva to take Goro over and attack her, then subdue him? Make Diva waste her time? What if she wasn't the target? What if that was just a distraction? Fuck, she was no good at this. She let go reluctantly, clearing her throat. "We, uh. Need a plan." No. That could wait. So, instead, she cut herself off and hugged him again, she just stood in the dark a little while longer, holding her foster son. Player 1: Without warning, Goro tensed up again and shoved Ripley away. He avoided looking at her as he walked over to pick up his wands and his knife. "By the way, I've been meaning to ask you for a raise. I've got rent to pay." And with that, he strode out the door. END Player 2: Joan snags the door, forces it open, and shouts after him: "I know you moved into the fucking pirate ship, Goro. You don't have rent! You're not scamming a raise out of me." She closes the door. Finally, she thinks. She told him to get out of her office like an hour ago. THE END NOW Category:Text Roleplay